In 1998 I got involved (in a very light manner) with a cult. That was a time where I was living in UK and I was feeling very lonely. I was working in Kingston as a developer, just by the river and I loved the job. But I was so alone and without any help from anyone at that point in time (I had just broke up with my fiance too), that naturally, I needed to find comfort and friendship.

I don’t remember how I met that young Polish woman, but I think she approached me in the train on the way to work. We talked about some things and then she asked me if I was a Christian etc etc. To make the long story short she explained to me that she was a member of the International Church of Christ (ICC) and she asked me if I would like to go to Church with her on Sunday or to do Bible study together.

While I was frequenting Catholic, Orthodox and ‘Church of England’ masses when I felt like doing so, I knew that the ICC was a cult of sorts, so I told her “why don’t we start with Bible study in our lunch breaks, and then we will see if I will come to your church”. And so we did a few times. Basically, they use the same Bible as other Christians do, but they are all about discipline and following the word of the Bible to the letter. So even if Christ or St Paul might have used allegory or being sarcastic (or even funny) about something, they would take the meaning literally. They were black and white in their belief and I also really disliked their “requirement” of giving 10% of your annual income to their “Church”.

Despite this, I decided to give her the benefit of the doubt and follow her in their church once, somewhere in the south-east of London. The mass was pretty nice, there was lots of singing and socializing. The people there all felt to me as being genuinely good people. Nothing really abnormal in them or even in the way the mass was performed. But when the time for getting the communion came (a sort of dry bread IIRC), the basket that was passed around fell off my hands! Of course, I felt really silly and bad about this, but on the other hand, I took this as a sign. In the Orthodox church, which is how I grew up, spitting out the communion or dropping it, is a major offense. IF God exists and wanted to give me a pointer as if I should have joined ICC or not, he would have chosen exactly this: me, throwing down the communion, even if it was by mistake, because he would know that I would react on this.

Despite this again, and of course, with the untiring effort of my friend to get me in their cult, I agreed to visit a house in South London with her to do Bible study with some other ICC members. It was me, her and two more women present in the house, and for about 30 minutes we read the Bible. So far, so good. Then, one of the women there suggested to… baptize me. Of course, I was already baptized in an Orthodox church, but ICC claims that baptism from any other church does not count, because it had happened without the consent of the follower in that early age. They also claim that you can be baptized by any other Christian, not just by a priest. This actually does makes sense, because this is how the first Christians in the 1st and 2nd century A.D. were doing it too (ICC tries to recreate the first Christian life up to a point).

But I wasn’t sure that I wanted to do that. Getting “baptized” by them, it would mean that I would become one of them. I needed time to think… I asked if there was a bathroom around. I visited the bathroom, and guess what: my period had just arrive. And while I have a very steady cycle of period throughout my adult life (28 days), this period has arrived just within 15 days of my previous one! And this is another major pointer for me, because again, according to the Orthodox Church you can’t be baptized, or get communion, or kiss the pictures of the saints if you have your period. Sure, it can all be a coincidence, and it could all be my own subconscious ordering my body to do things it wouldn’t normally do because of my underlying objection to cults. But no matter if it was all a coincidence, or my subconscious or God himself, I didn’t need another pointer. I did not get “baptized” by the ICC members and I never went to their mass again.

Of course, the Polish friend did not stop trying to get me back (aka “bothering me”)… I decided to give her faith one more chance, but this time I was the one who was doing the preaching. One Sunday afternoon that we met up I told her a little story and asked her opinion on it. The story was a 300-year old Greek story about Saint Cosmas o Aitolos (aka ‘Cosmas the Aetolian’). During that time the Greeks were under Turkish occupation. St Cosmas was living in a mountain, in his monastery and he had the respect of both the Turks and the Greeks for known to be being a wise man. One night, a man knocked on his door and he said “Father Cosmas, please hide me! The Turks are after me, I committed a crime in the village at the planes… I killed a man tonight”. Cosmas replied “who did you kill?” and the man replied with a name. True enough, a few minutes later the Turks were banging on the door of St Cosmas. Cosmas hid the killer, and the Turks didn’t even bother to look at the monastery, as they were trusting the monk with his word because of his good reputation.

Then, I asked my Polish friend what did she think about what Cosmas did. And she replied that what he did was wrong to give refuge to a killer and that according to the Bible he should have given him to the authorities. Then I told her the remaining part of the story: the man that was killed was Saint Cosmas brother, and yet, the monk forgave the killer in an act of immense love and care. She replied that this is not what the Bible says that we should do. That was the last straw, I politely told her that I don’t want to see her again. Through this parable and her reaction it was obvious to me that these people are making “dry readings” of the Bible and they don’t even understand the most basic Christian values: love and forgiveness.

“A clutch of modern pagans honored Zeus at a 1,800-year-old temple in the heart of Athens on Sunday — the first known ceremony of its kind held there since the ancient Greek religion was outlawed by the Roman Empire in the fourth century.”

How more stupid people can get? This is a good example of how love for your country goes bad. There is a reason why these pagans are actually educated people. Educated people can see that the modern Greece has nothing to show for itself compared to the old Greece. And because they can’t do anything to fix it, they turn to –foolishly– into the ancient higher powers to bring them hope. In light of this news all I see is people who feel betrayed by modern Greece. But they should get out of it and get a life.

If I had the money and resources the Colossus of Rhodes would be the only one of the 7 wonders of the ancient world that I would re-erect. Could bring lots of tourism in Greece. I am watching a documentary about it as I write this and I think there are a few ways to make that statue more interesting than the original: amazing lights at night, a beacon on his right hand that burns in the day and lits bright light at night etc. It would sit near the port, but not directly at it.

Update: “After its destruction from natural forces an oracle said that the statue should never be rebuilt“. Ah, crap. There go my plans…

My JBQ loves this (traditionally French) fruit pie. You can use either fresh cherries or pears (don’t make the same mistake as I originally made to use either frozen or dried fruits).

Ingredients (for 5-6)
* 4 eggs
* 125 gr sugar
* 50 gr butter
* 60 gr flour
* 250 ml milk
* 400 gr cherries or pears

Execution
1. Melt the butter in a saucepan in very low heat. Preheat oven at 200 C (355 F).
2. Beat the eggs and sugar in a big bowl using a mixer.
3. Add the flour slowly and continue to beat the mixture.
4. Add the butter in the mixture and continue to beat.
5. Add the milk slowly and continue to beat the mixture for a few more seconds.
6. Using your (clean) finger get the butter that’s left in the saucepan and spread it in your oven dish.
7. Wash the cherries under cold water, remove their sticks. You can remove the pits if you want to, but the original recipe calls for whole cherries.
8. Spread the cherries in the oven dish, beat the mixture for 5 more seconds, and then spread that mixture atop the cherries.
9. Bake in the oven for about 30-40 minutes until golden (not as much as in my picture though, I was on the phone and I overcooked it a tiny bit)…
10. Eat it warm (not hot and not too cold either).

“The Closer” star Kyra Sedgwick is having a pretty good week. […] The new deal will pay her in the range of $250,000 to $300,000 per episode”

I know that this is a free market and all, but man, a quarter of a million every 10 days (that’s how long it takes to complete a TV episode) is a bit too much for the kind of service she offers. Besides, her cable TV show has only 6 million viewers per week, and if it was on a networked TV channel instead she wouldn’t last a single season.

Hey, I don’t like the communistic economic system, but it’s times like these that capitalism sounds sour to me. I am happy for Sedgwick’s success, but I don’t think she offers to the world more than even that open source Gimp developer who doesn’t get paid for his work does. I am fine with skilled people getting paid higher than others (e.g. my husband is getting paid pretty well compared to most US citizens, other professionals do too), but when it comes to huge sums of money for just a few days of work, I somehow have a problem with it.

No, I am not jealous, I live an easy life (we aren’t rich, but we do live in considerable comfortability). It’s just that it feels unfair than an individual can make so much money in 10 days of work while others have to look at the garbage cans for your old burger. I swear to the bones of my grandfather that if *I* (not JBQ) was making so much easy money, a huge sum would go to charity. And if JBQ wouldn’t agree with me giving away so much money, I would divorce him so I could do so, or, I would stop working so I wouldn’t have to make money that I could not share with others.

While right now I live a good life (only my health sucks), I grew up poorer than most kids around me. I have no attachment to money, none whatsoever. As long as I have enough money to make me feel safe from starvation and enough to get me a roof above my head, I am good.

Ok, am I slow or “The Office” doesn’t make sense? What’s the point of that show? When I see an actor sitting in a chair and the camera zooms on him and he doesn’t talk, and then suddenly he starts talking a tiny bit about off topic crap, what’s up with this? I simply don’t get “The Office”. I don’t find it funny and I don’t find it coherent. I guess that’s because it’s a “mockumentary supposedly-reality show” rather than a traditional sit-com, but this just doesn’t work for me. At least not for 2 years in the row. The “feel” of the show gets old.

The reason I write this is because some people online expressed their disapproval of “Ugly Betty” winning a Golden Globe award against “The Office“. Well, duh. “Ugly Betty” actually is funny, it has some interesting twists (anyone saw coming Rebecca Romijn now portrays Daniel’s… brother?), it is romantic and well-directed (in a coherent way that is). And I know this because it has captivated me, as I am a person that I would never sit down and watch such a “fashion drama” TV series under normal circumstances.

In fact, I remember in 1988, when “The Bold and the Beautiful” started broadcasting in the Greek TV and it had taken the female population by storm back then. I remember specifically a time period of 3 days where my two girlfriend’s TVs were busted and they were coming to my home to watch it. In order to fit in with them I lied to their face that I liked that fashion soap opera too and watched it with them, while in reality I could not stand 5 minutes of it. Brother steals his brother’s wife, fathers stealing their son’s girlfriends, people divorcing and getting back together just to divorce again a few weeks later etc etc. Yuck. Why the hell are people are watching soap operas? Thank God “Ugly Betty” has nothing to do with all that.

I was reading in the Greek news that some people in the government advocate that the new vaccine against some forms of cervical cancer should be obligatory. Personally, I am against this as of yet, because the vaccine is very new and has not proven itself outside of the lab as being truly without major side-effects (I am sure it works, but at what cost?). Mandatory vaccines should only be enforced to the population after the particular drug has been out and about for at least 10 years, OR, if the population dies or gets sick in large numbers and desperate measures must be taken.

Of course, what is the alternative, right? I took my first PAP test when I was 22 years old. But if the law instead requires all girls above 16 to take the PAP test, this can find opposition by many parents in the rural Greece. For example, my father would never allow me to take the PAP test or wear a tampon as a teenager, because that would cause loss of my virginity. And this is something absolutely unacceptable for him until engagement or marriage.

“Alan Cox, one of the leading Linux kernel developers, has told a House of Lords hearing that neither open- nor closed-source developers should be liable for the security of the code they write.”

I beg to differ. There should be a limit as to how much “stupid” or “malicious” a developer can be. This is like saying that a house built with bad quality parts should not hold liable the house builder that picked them and used them and that eventually led to the destruction of the house even with a 5 Richter earthquake. I can tell you right now that my father (a house/roof builder) is liable if this happens. So if my father is liable, why a developer can’t be? Loss or destruction of someone’s information on a PC can ultimately be more expensive than losing a house or a roof.

Of course, there is absolutely no software that is 100% secure (sometimes might even be a combination of different libraries working together, or the compiler itself that is buggy), this is why such a potential law should be flexible. When a developer has a track record of badly written software, or way too many holes are found in one of his programs, or if the software is way too popular and the developer didn’t take care of it properly, or when security patches were sent to him and failed to follow up on them in a timely manner etc etc, then that developer should be hold liable.

This might sound preposterous right now, because everyone thinks “hey, it’s just software”. But you know, times change. What you call “just software”, today has evolved to be part of our lives and integral part of businesses. While 10 or 20 years ago such a law would indeed be preposterous (simply because it would only affect very few people or businesses), today it is not so. No matter if software is a hobby for someone or not, there is a responsibility that comes with it if released to the public.

Someone said in the OSNews forums “wouldn’t that kill the freeware scene?”. Well, maybe. But at least your computer will be safer. There is a price to pay for everything in this world. If you want security (and the majority of people want just that, out of the box), someone will have to be more careful as to what he/she releases to the public.

Look, this is similar to the practicing license for doctors. Back in the day you didn’t need a license to practice it. When the law got in place I am sure it was greeted with the same kind of skepticism. 200 years later, I say we are better off with licensed doctors rather than random people knocking in our door to sell us snake oil.

Yes, I trade the freedom of an individual who expresses himself via software, for security. Thing is though, in the case of software, other people use it, and they can indeed get hurt by it, financially or otherwise. If there was a way to become blind because you stared at Mona Lisa, then I am sure Leonardo da Vinci would be held liable AS WELL. So if a law helps my PC become more secure, I don’t care how Joe Developer actually does it, as long as he/she takes the right steps to do so. It will make the development of software more expensive and tedious, but as a user, this is something I can live with.

My mom got a new car, a Toyota Aygo, same color as in the picture below. Hopefully this city car can actually manage the 40 Khm+ she has to drive daily to go to her job and come back.

I’ve owned three Motorola Linux phones so far (and I am going for a fourth one soon, mark my words). But these EZX phones should have seen a level of “fixing” in the 4 years of their existance, but only small fixes and additions have been seen so far. In fact, as I have said in the past in this blog, all the EZX phones we have seen from Motorola so far are all re-hashes of the same hardware design (different form factor, but largely unchanged inside) and very small software upgrades in terms of optimizations or software additions. So, here are a few hints for our Asian Motorola engineers who are (obviously) banging their heads against the wall as they seem to be understaffed and without direction:

* Battery capacity is not precisely measured. It only shows 100%, 50% and 25% of battery capacity left. Other phones (e.g. Sony Ericsson, PocketPCs) are very precise down to 5% of precision.
* Real Player drops frames on all kinds of videos and resolutions. Serious optimization must be in order. Even Sony Ericsson phones that run at 80 Mhz perform better in multimedia than these Linux EZX phones at 312 Mhz.
* The system font looks like crap. It is too big by default, and it is in bold too. This has an impact in the Opera browser because fonts are bigger than they should be. And unfortunately, that version of Opera does not have a “font size” option, but instead only “zooming” which is not what I want (the zooming thing also shrinks down images you see and so it makes *mobile* pages look like crap). The normal font size in Opera should not be bigger than what you get at Opera’s 90% zoom when the current system font settings are set to “small”. We ain’t blind you see.
* Add XviD, OGG, WMA, h.264, WMV support.
* Make all phones EDGE and Quad-band capable. Add Wi-Fi to the more expensive models.
* Add VoIP SIP support and make sure it works with various wifi router models and SIP services like Gizmo, Ekiga, VoipBuster, FWD etc.
* Fix A2DP’s sound quality which currently sucks goats (over-compressed stream).
* Add FAT32 and SDHC support up to 8 GB.
* Make the softkey font smaller and with a softer/ligher bg color than the current gradients. Many java apps’ softkey menus don’t fit currently and their text is truncated.
* Add support for scrolling menus. For example, if you click on the main menu of the IM+ application, the menu entries are overlapping because its long menu doesn’t scroll up/down.
* Make it possible when you are in the main screen to navigate to the 4-5 main buttons on the top of the screen.
* Fix the main screen which looks like crap, it’s slow to scroll, and it flickers like hell when you do so.
* The contacts pictures are not keeping aspect ratio and makes the heads of the people you love look like elves. More optimizations should be available in terms of how to fit better the information in the main contacts screen.
* Add many keyboard layouts that the user can set as selectable. E.g. it only takes a few KBs per keyboard layout/font and that could help the phone become more internationally accepted and easier bought in retail.
* The IM application does not work with the YamiGO service. A real IM app would have been better though (with support for Y!, MSN, AIM, ICQ, GTalk and Jabber).
* Fix your java implementation to support Bluetooth, camera and GPS hooks, so apps like Opera Mini and GPS Java apps can work. And make sure Gmail-j2me works.
* Add support for automatic email retrieval (pull) and add support for Pop3 Gmail.
* Retrieve the current time from the network.
* Able to sort Contacts by “company”.
* Make the stylus to snap on a hidge around the camera mirror and then be flexible. This way, you add the ability for the phone to have a flexible “kickstand” for acceptable movie viewing.
* Add mpkg support so people can install third party apps.
* Adding a terminal or ssh/telnet app would be a nice thing, maybe as a third party mpkg (for Linux-fanatics that happen to be admins).
* And of course, FREE THE SDK.